Go ahead, blame Rove!

Go Ahead, Blame Rove!

He didn't make small mistakes.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters this week that he expected to "re-visit" the issue when he becomes chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in the 110th Congress, which has a Democratic Party majority.

Someone (Hugh?) might ask Tony "The Fence Is Going to Be Built" Snow if Bush promises a veto. ... The administration is clearly relying on the tremendous appeal of a fence on the right to buy it a lot of support when it comes to guest-workers and semi-amnesty (sorry, "earned legalization"). My sense is that this calculation is pretty savvy--if you give the right a fence they'll agree to almost anything! Or way too much anyway. But Bush can't have it both ways--using the fence to buy off the right with one hand while allowing (encouraging?) Democratic repeal of the Fence Act with the other. 12:57 P.M.link

Escape from Pinchistan? It's Nov. 13--isn't it time For the NYT's visionary Pinch Sulzberger to lock Friedman, Krugman, Dowd, Brooks and Suellentrop, et. al., back in their pay-to-read dungeon after a week of free access for all? But the cold steel doors don't seem to have slammed shut yet. ... Is the crack in the TimesSelect wall going to be like that crack in the Berlin Wall? ... Once they've tasted freedom .... Update:Brutal. Back to your cell, Krugman! Those impoverished Arab millions yearning for your insight--forget them, Friedman! As they will forget you. ... Project Lifeline: Send the Times pundit of your choice an email just to let them know you remember them. [You have to be a TimesSelect subscriber to send them emails--ed That Pinch is a madman! He's thought of everything. ... The cocoon is impregnable!]... 12:11 A.M. link

Just asking: Whose Agenda?: In the NYT today Toner and Zernike describe all sorts of wholesome little populist reforms the incoming Rahm-Dems want to achieve--health care for children, changes in the Medicare drug program, tuition aid, etc. Do these Dems really want Congress tied up for months in a messy, potentially party-splitting and '08-endangering fight over immigration reform (and legalization of illegals and sanctions against employers) just because the younger Bush and Karl Rove decided years ago that this (along with taking out Saddam) would be part of Bush's legacy? Without Bush's willfulness, would anybody have put "comprehensive" immigration reform on the front burner? It's certainly not something these new Dems ran on, by and large. The press is baying mindlessly for a bipartisan agenda--but whose agenda: Pelosi's or Bush's?...

In the days after the election, Democratic leaders surprised pro-immigration groups by not including the issue on their list of immediate priorities. Experts said the issue is so complicated, so sensitive and so explosive that it could easily blow up in the Democrats' faces and give control of Congress back to Republicans in the next election two years from now. And a number of Democrats who took a hard line on illegal immigration were also elected to Congress.

It's the CW! Now I'm suspicious. Bush badly wants a "comprehensive" bill, after all. Are "Democratic leaders" just playing hard-to-get in the press, holding out for concessions on other issues? [The paranoid mind at work--ed. They told you to say that, didn't they? It's part of their plan.] ... See also Drum (and his commenters). ...

Aha: As if on cue, Yglesias argues that Dems should take an immigration deal, in part because Bush is desperate and "more Latino citizens = more Democratic voters over the long term." But why would Republicans buy that argument? Doesn't the bill need at least some Republican support (other than Bush)? ... P.S.: Yglesias wants a bill that's "long on amnesty earned legalization and short on guest workers." His cross-out, not mine. Isn't a bill that's 'long on amnesty' kind of "explosive," just as WaPo says? 11:41 A.M. link

Go Ahead, Blame Rove!Slate'sJohn Dickerson says Republicans "Don't Blame Rove." But he makes a good case for blaming Rove before he makes the case against it:

1. After the national horror of 9/11, Rove chose to please the president's conservative base rather than seize the historic moment of national unity by pushing a more moderate set of policies. ... [snip]

2. It was Rove's idea to push for Social Security reform after the 2004 election. He kept pushing it long after voters had told pollsters they didn't want it. He wildly misread the national mood, woke up the left, and saddled Republicans in Congress with a loser issue. Then, he pushed for comprehensive immigration reform, angering a different portion of the base.

3. He and Bush delayed announcing Rumsfeld's departure. Had Rumsfeld left two months ago, you can bet George Allen and Conrad Burns wouldn't be planning their retirement parties. [Emphasis added]

If all that's true, Republicans would have to be morons not to blame Rove. I know some Republicans who aren't morons. ...

Update: It's easy to do after the fact--but Newsweek describes Rove as a deluded, isolated, obsessive, relying on semi-secret technical knowledge to overcome his large policy blunders:

Rove blames complacent candidates for much of the GOP's defeat. He says even some scandal-tainted members won when they followed what he calls "the program" of voter contacts and early voting. "Where some people came up short was where they didn't have a program," he told NEWSWEEK.

"The public needs to know, I'm telling you right now, the fence is going to be built. "

Snow promises "certainly, more than a hundred miles" by 2008, if I read the interview correctly. 1:05 A.M.

Just a reminder: Rep. Henry Waxman, the aggressive incoming liberal chair of the House Government Reform committee--who is chiding his Republican predecessors for not investigating (in AP's words) "the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the controversy over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name, and the pre-Iraq war use of intelligence"-- voted for the war. ... All future beat-sweeteners about Waxman should be required to (unlike AP) mention this fact before reporting Waxman's righteous indignation. [Can't he complain about how the war was executed?--ed Sure. But complaining about the manipulated pre-war intelligence is a bit much. Maybe he was duped by all that manipulated pre-war intelligence--ed. Please.He's a smart, well-connected, experienced guy. I think he's hard to dupe.] 12:34 A.M.

To "Fight Club" Democrats**: Given the near-disaster of John Kerry's initial "I apologize to no one" reaction in the flap over his troop comments, do you think maybe Bob Shrum had a point when he chose not to immediately fight back in the Swift Boat controversy of 2004? [The point would be a) sometimes fighting back isn't the smart thing to do or b) some clods are really bad at fighting back?--ed Both, but mainly (b)]

Ford's new Fusion sedan has receivedshockingly high reliability ratings from Consumer Reports. That has to be good news for the workers in the assembly plant where it's produced ... in Hermosillo, Mexico. ... To be fair: Some Fusion engines come from Ohio. The Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS, both assembled in Detroit, also did very well. ... 3:41 P.M.

Lou-ing: More on the new "non-comprehensive" Democrats: This email from an experienced immigration hand who disagrees with me on the issue--

What's REALLY important is that of the 27 or 28 seats where a Democrat replaced a Republican, in at least 20, the Democrat ran to the immigration enforcement side of the Republican: don't let Hayworth and Graf** fool you, cuz those two examples ain't fooling Rahm.

What's more, if legalizing illegals is so widely supported by the electorate, how come no Democrats campaigned on it? Not all were as tough as Brad Ellsworth, the Indiana sheriff who defeated House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Hostettler, or John Spratt of South Carolina, whose immigration web pages might as well have been written by Tom Tancredo. But even those nominally committed to "comprehensive" reform stressed enforcement as job one. And the national party's "Six for 06" rip-off of the Contract with America said not a word about immigration reform, "comprehensive" or otherwise.

The only exception to this "Whatever you do, don't mention the amnesty" approach appears to have been Jim Pederson, the Democrat who challenged Sen. Jon Kyl ... by touting a Bush-McCain-Kennedy-style amnesty and foreign-worker program and even praised the 1986 amnesty, which pretty much everyone now agrees was a catastrophe.

Pederson lost.

Dreaded kf welfare analogy: After the 1994 midterm elections, welfare reform was the one big domestic issue that the new incoming Congressional majority had in common with the damaged President they'd just defeated. "Comprehensive" immigration reform is in the same logical position (with the parties reversed). The difference is that in 1994, Gingrich's Republicans had explicitly campaigned on welfare reform. Pelosi's Democrats have run away from "comprehensive" reform. That may not be enough of a difference, and there are differences that run the other way--arguably Bush is more desperate for an immigration bill than Clinton was for a welfare bill. But it's grounds for hope.

Not So Fast! Maybe "comprehensive" immigration reform isn't a done deal. Here, via Polipundit, is the immigration position of ... Senator-elect Jim Webb:

The immigration debate is divided into three separate issues. How can we secure our border? What should we do about the 11 million undocumented workers? And, lastly there is the guest worker question. It is necessary to separate out the 3 issues. The primary concern must be securing the border. Immediate action is needed to stem the flow of illegal border crossings. Approaching the issue using an omnibus bill that attempts to solve all three issues simultaneously creates a political stalemate that delays the border security solution. There is a consensus that our border security must be improved and we should act on that consensus as soon as possible. Once the border is secure we can develop a fair solution to other immigration issues. [E.A.]

That doesn't sound "comprehensive" to me. That sounds like "enforcement first, then we'll talk."

More: In attacking the "Lou Dobbs Democrats," Jacob Weisberg lumps opposition to illegal immigration with trade protectionism as part of the "economic nationalism" advanced by so many of the now-famous Dem "moderates" who won this year. That's very CFR of him, along with the not-so-veiled suggestion that advocates of border control are racists. But the immigration half of this Democrats' new Lou Dobbsianism does suggest that Bush and McCain might have a harder time selling "comprehensive" reform than I'd feared. Here are some Weisberg characterizations:

Here is a snippet from one of [Senator-elect Sherrod] Brown's TV spots: "I'm for an increase in the minimum wage and against trade agreements that cost Ohio jobs. I support stem-cell research, tighter borders, and a balanced-budget amendment." ...[snip]

In Virginia, apparent winner James Webb denounced outsourcing and blasted George Allenfor voting to allow more "foreign guest workers" into the state. In Missouri, victor Claire McCaskill refused to let incumbent James Talent out-hawk her on immigration. ...[snip]

An even harder-edged nationalism defined many of the critical House races, where Democrats called for a moratorium on trade agreements, for canceling existing ones, or, in some cases, for slapping protective trade tariffs on China. These candidates also lumped illegal immigrants together with terrorists and demanded fencing and militarization of the Mexican border. In Pennsylvania, Democratic challengers Chris Carney and Patrick Murphy defeated Republican incumbents by accusing them of destroying good jobs by voting for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and being soft on illegal immigration.

P.S.: Weisberg distinguishes "economic nationalism" from the more "familiar"--and presumably more benign--"economic populism":

Nationalism begins from the populist premise that working people aren't doing so well. But instead of blaming the rich at home, it focuses its energy on the poor abroad.

So does Weisberg think it's ok to blame "the rich at home" for working-class living standards? That's not very centrist or DLC-ish. And I don't believe he believes that explanation. The claim that uncontrolled immigration does have the effect of bidding down wages, meanwhile, is quite plausible and consistent with normal market economics of the sort the DLC usually endorses. It's also consistent with support for free trade--the argument would be that it's easier to support free trade if Americans can at least get good wages for those unskilled jobs that can't be shipped abroad (the so-called non-tradable sector). In fact, that seems like a much more plausible combo than the coupling of free trade with Clintonian "worker retraining programs" whidh, as Weisberg notes, never amounted to much. ...

Egg on CNN Poll Face? As ABC's Notepoints out, by one measure those final three polls showing a Republican comeback turned out to be quite accurate. It's just that, as so often happens, the "comeback" didn't keep coming! ... The final vote (as measured by exit poll) was 53-45 Dems over GOPs. The three 'GOP comback' polls understated that 8 point Dem advantage by 1 percentage point (Gallup), 2 points (ABC) and 4 points (Pew). Meanwhile, the four polls showing no pro-GOP movement overstated the Dem advantage by 5 percentage points (Fox), 7 percentage points (Time), 10 percentage points (Newsweek), and an embarrassing 12 percentage points for CNN. ... 3:16 P.M.

Vilsack vs. Iowa: Isn't Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's presidential run more good news for the Democrats--he'll be the favorite son in Iowa's caucuses, meaning other candidates will have a ready-made excuse to skip them and the press will have a good excuse to downplay them? Maybe the sweet, polite fools who fell for the John Kerry authorized bio won't get to do similar damage in 2008. ... P.S.: The CW is presumably that this is also good news for Hillary, who wasn't looking like the likely Iowa winner (and maybe bad news for Edwards, who was). ... Update: Several emailers suggest that Vilsack isn't nearly popular enough in Iowa to clear the field the way Tom Harkin did. But he only has to do well enough to give Hillary a plausible excuse for skipping Iowa, no? ... More: Everybody still seems to think I'm wrong about this. I probably am! ... 2:34 P.M.

Sleeping Giant Watch: That front-page Wall Street Journal article on the "Crucial Role of Hispanics" in the Democrats' victory-- cited by Alterman, among others--would be more convincing if it came with some actual numbers about the size of the Hispanic vote. Yes, according to exit polls "Hispanics favoring Democrats over Republicans by 73% to 26%." But what percent of the overall vote, in what races, was Hispanic? ... P.S.: Even a follow-up WSJ story [$] has no numbers, only a (highly plausible) claim of "an increase in turnout" among Hispanics, attributed to Sergio Bendixen. ... P.P.S.: No turnout numbers here either. ...

Hispanics accounted for 8 percent of the total vote. That is about equal to the Hispanic vote's record turnout in the 2004 presidential election, and much more than its turnout in previous mid-term elections. [emphasis added]

NBC's anchors Russert, Brokaw and Williams can't be Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative--that wouldn't do!--but they can be relentless, tedious advocates of bipartisanship and moderation. Isn't that an ideological position too? ["Bipartisanshp" is a blazing arrow pointing at ...-ed "Comprehensive" immigration reform, I know.] 8:17 P.M.

It looks like Clay Shaw, who played an important and honorable role in the 1996 welfare reform--in part by detoxifying Republican anti-welfare rhetoric-- will lose. ... [You like a Republican? What a surprise?-ed Hey, I like Sheldon Whitehouse! I saw him at a fundraiser--he was charmingly wonky. He should be a good senator from Rhode Island (even if he's too violently opposed to the No Child Left Behind law).] 8:06 P.M.

Just Asking 2: How annoyed must Chris Matthews be at having to share his anchor desk with Keith Olbermann? 8:02 P.M.

Just Asking: What does it tell you about a political party if in a year of epic disaster for their opponents the best they can hope for is a 51-49 majority in the Senate? ... Update: Matt Yglesias says it tells us the Senate is constitutionally malapportioned. I agree. But that's still a problem for the Dems! And many readers email to point out that only a third of the Senate was up for election. That's true too. But it's also true that the Democrats have had other elections, with other Senate seats, to build a stronger majority and they haven't. ... The 2004 election, with its famous "wrong track" numbers, should have been good for the Democrats, while it's hard to imagine a more favorable climate than the current one. ... Six years into the last Republican two-term President, in 1986, the Democrats gained eight seats to achieve a 55-45 majority. And Ronald Reagan's sixth year wasn't nearly as bad as George W. Bush's sixth year. ... If this is the high water mark for the Dems in the Senate, it's a low high water mark. ... The same can probably be said for the House, though it's too early to tell exactly how big Pelosi's margin will be. ... 8:21 A.M.

Seven national polls have been conducted since Wednesday, November 1. They give Democrats an average lead of 11.6 percentage points, larger than any party has had going into an Election Day in memory. Even if you knock five points off of it, it's 6.6 percentage points, bigger than the advantage that Republicans had going into 1994.

1. We'd like to punish President Bush. If I could get Bush out of office now with my vote I'd exercise it immediately. But we can't get rid of Bush. We can only defeat his party in Congress.

2. One effect of a Dem House takeover is the radically increased probability that Congress will pass a version of Bush's "comprehensive" immigration reform, including some sort of not-very-difficult path to full citizenship for illegal aliens now living in the U.S. ("semi-amnesty"). The Republican House majority, after all, has been the only thing standing in Bush's way. In other words, a Democratic victory would punish Bush by giving him a gift of his top domestic legislative priority. Perverse! It would be easy to live with the perversity if Bush's plan were sound policy--but it's more Iraq-style wishful Bush thinking: a) thinking that granting amnesty won't encourage more foreign workers to try to come here illegally to position themselves for the next amnesty; b) thinking that a Republican administration will administer a tough, effective system of sanctions against any employers who hire those illegal workers. If you believe that, you probably believed we could just train the Iraqi police force and then everything would calm down over there.

3. If the GOPs lose, it will be primarily because of Iraq--but it seems unlikely that a Democratic victory will actually have a huge effect on American policy in Iraq, at least for the next two years. (Alter agrees.) Bush will still be president, remember (see Perversity #1). He will have to deal with the mess he's gotten the nation into. And it's not as if the Democrats have a raft of solutions that are better than the ones the Baker Commission will come up with. Nor does it seem likely that the Democrats will join with Bush to take responsibility for any new strategy he chooses. But the Dem victory is likely to limit Bush's options--e.g. making it harder for him to credibly threaten a long-range American military presence. Since extricating ourselves from bad military situations (e.g. the Korean War) often requires issuing threats (even nuclear threats) and making promises of military protetion, these new limits may not be a positive development even for those who'd like to get out of Iraq quickly.

The implications of these unintended-but-not-unanticipated, consequences for Tuesday night seem clear to me: the best outcome would be if the GOPs retain the House (thwarting Bush's immigration plan) but decisively lose the Senate(punishing Bush and establishing a mechanism for the hearings and oversight Dems like Alter want). This, of course, is the least likely thing to actually happen. Perversity #4.

Update--Perversity #5: I make a big deal about how it would be better if the Dems lost the House battle, but in the only House race on my ballot, I voted Democratic (absentee). Why? My Democratic congresswoman, Jane Harman, is moderate and responsible. I like her, even if Nancy Pelosi doesn't. ... 12:38 P.M.link

The Democrats, in a divided government, will also have to take responsibility for the hard choices involved in wartime.

Does he really believe this? Are the House and Senate Democrats going to sign on to a new post-election strategy in Iraq after having just succeeded by sitting on the sidelines and opposing? I don't think so. ... P.S.: Sullivan also declares

One party hegemony produces corruption and unaccountability.

Isn't it unified government that tends to produce accountability by lodging responsibility with one party. Thanks to unified government, we know which party is responsible for the Iraq war. If the voters don't like the war, which appears to be the case, they can effectively punish the Republicans.. ... Divided governments--to the extent that they actually result in shared responsibility--also diffuse accountability. You don't know which party to blame. ... P.P.S.: Even if the Democrats take Congress, I don't think voters in 2008 will have much trouble figuring out whom to blame for Iraq, but that's only because I don't think the Democrats will really share responsibility. ... P.P.P.S.: And if the Democrats really do gain a solid hold on Congress, and the Republicans nominate, say, Dick Cheney or John Ashcroft for president, don't you think Sullivan may suddenly rediscover the virtues of unified government?

Extra credit: Sullivan is a) displaying the wishful-thinking tendency that led him to become a bullying proponent of the war in the first place; b) demonstrating the any-weapon-to-hand argument style that so endeared him to his subordinates at The New Republic;c) riven by doubt, as usual. ... 10:05 P.M.

Franklin said this before today's trio of polls showing the race tightening, notes Influence Peddler. ... Is it all John Kerry's fault? Ten days ago was Thursday, Oct. 26.--but Kerry's comments didn't come until four days later. That means the Dems had started downhill before Kerry even opened his mouth. ... P.S.--Musil and Maguire, Getting Higher:Man Without Qualities, who also saw a Dem slide before it became official, surfs the anti-wave further than I would. ... See also Maguire. ... P.P.S.: Maguire unsuccessfully tries to come up with an anti-Pelosi bumper sticker. How about "Alcee, Amnesty, and Abortion"? ... 7:04 P.M.

It's official! The new Gallup/USAT poll shows the same pro-GOP trend among "likely voters."

Update: A Pew poll also shows a dramatic tightening-- from an 11 point Dem advantage a couple of weeks ago to a 4 point Dem advantage this weekend. One more example and it will be a Trend. ... P.S.: Generic polls may be lousy indicators of what's going to happen in 435 House races, and any individual generic poll could be right or wrong. But when several such polls point in the same direction, it would seem to have some weight at least on the question of who has momentum. I actually expected a last-minute shift to the Dems. ... Of course, the last minute has not arrived yet. ...

More: A knowledgeable emailer notes that in both polls the GOP comeback occurs mainly among "likely voters." The generic Dem lead among the larger group of "registered voters" remains impressive, though it's shrunk a bit. ... That doesn't make the GOP surge phony--assuming the methods the polls use to select "likely voters" are reliable. ... 11:49 A.M.

MICHAEL BARONE: If John Conyers will be chairman of the Judiciary Committee which handles immigration . . . I expect that they would be pushing for something like the bill that passed the Senate this year with guest worker legalization provisions to come before the House. And it would have — it would tend to have a majority of votes in the Democratic House, I think. [On Special Report with Brit Hume]

8:11 P.M.

Patterico 1, Keller 0:The New York Times has corrected the amazing Kate Zernike piece that managed--as Patterico's Pontificationspointed out--to give a false, heavily spun account of a two-sentence John Kerry utterance.

A Political Memo article yesterday about the fallout for Senator John Kerry over what he called a "botched joke" referred incompletely to the differences between prepared remarks and what he actually said about the Iraq war to students at Pasadena City College in California on Monday. Mr. Kerry not only dropped the word "us," but he also rephrased his opening sentence extensively and omitted a reference to President Bush. Mr. Kerry's aides said that the prepared text read: "Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush." What he said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

That's OK as far as it goes. But they left out the rest of the correction:

A reference that wasn't 'incomplete' would have vitiated the central premise of the article, which was that Kerry had gotten into trouble "with a single word — or a single word left out of what was supposed to be a laugh line directed at the president ." The Times would have been left with a large blank space on Page A-24 or might have had to confront the possibility that Senator Kerry had badly misread the prepared joke in line with preexisting beliefs about the academic achievements of American military personnel. Several layers of skilled editors instead let the reporter's deceptive ... excuse us, incomplete reference go through rather than confront that issue a few days before an election. The editors in question have been transferred to the TimesSelect-in-the-Schools marketing division. The reporter has been assigned to cover Senator Kerry for the rest of the decade.

5:44 P.M.

Lou Dobbs just said on CNN that "falling home prices" were a threat to "the American Middle Class." I must be behind. Wasn't it only a month or two ago that rising home prices were a threat to the American Middle Class? The American Middle Class loses either way! It's in worse trouble than I thought. ... A wake-up call! 5:20 P.M.

Tomorrow's Dick Morris Column Today: The so-called "Incumbent Rule" holds that undecided voters break almost uniformly against an incumbent--meaning that if in the final pre-election polls an incumbent isn't over 50%,** he or she is toast. The 2004 presidential election defied the rule--Bush got his share of the undecideds. But just in case the Rule still has some juice, it's worth applying it to the current hot Senate races. Here's the result:

The Incumbent Rule, in short, gives the three closest Senate races in which there's an incumbent, plus Michigan and Rhode Island, to the Dems. Looks like a Democratic Senate. ... But wait--what's this:

New Jersey:Menendez is leading by 7, but he's still at 48.5%. Not so fast!

Again, this isn't what I think will happen. It's what the Incumbent Rule thinks will happen. It could be right. ... One reason it might be wrong, in addition to those cited by Mystery Pollster, is, yes, the Feiler Faster Thesis. Given the increased speed of information processing by the voters, even challengers seem old and familiar--like incumbents--by the end of a typical, interminable statewide election campaign. The basic principle of the Incumbent Rule--that voters will take a fresh pig-in-a-poke over an incumbent they don't like--no longer applies. By next Tuesday voters in, say, Montana might have heard so much about John Tester that he seems like an incumbent, not a fresh unknown. ...

All Hands on Deck: With a week to go before a close election, the New York Times continues to move beyond Democratic cocooning (though it does some of that too) in the direction of flat-out misrepresenation. Kate Zernike's Kerry story not only doesn't ever get around to telling Times readers what Kerry actually said--it leaves the clear impression that what Kerry said was something different (and more benign) than it was.** Patterico prosecutes. ... P.S.: Kerry's comments aren't a scandal, let alone a three-day scandal. ("KERRY SAYS SOMETHING STUPID"--is that news? It's Kerry! He's our national doofus. Dog bites man.) But the startling deterioration of the NYT is a scandal, maybe. [Via Insta]

**--If Kerry had just dropped "a single word" from his prepared text--what Zernike identifies as the problem--he wouldn't have generated any controversy. The problem is he dropped that word plus the whole next sentence, leaving the distinct impression that he'd misread the passage to fit with an Early Vietnam-era view that those who don't do well in college wind up serving in the military. 11:27 P.M.

This anti-Burkle item in the L.A. Weekly doesn't add much, but does serve as a reminder: Are the feds ever going to actually bring charges against Jared Paul Stern, the now-ex-Page Six writer secretly taped by Burkle allegedly shaking Burkle down with a cash-for-coverage offer? It's been 7 months since the incident, Alan Mittelstaedt notes. ... P.S.: At this point, does Burkle even want an indictment, which could have the side effect of putting his name back in the headlines about the time his non-bachelor buddy Bill Clinton's wife is running for President? [Thx to alert reader Jared Paul Stern] 7:21 A.M.

Beyond Cocooning: The Feiler Faster principle will probably take care of John Kerry's Iraq gaffe long before it has any significant effect on the midterm vote--but the NYT's Adam Nagourney wasn't about to rely on that. Instead, Nagourney comes close to arguing that Kerry affirmatively helped the Dems because his remarks provoked an attack from President Bush, and "in the process, Mr. Bush brought renewed attention to the war in Iraq ..." Hey, that's the sort of wacky contrarian take a blogger might have! In applying such impressive ingenuity to the pro-Dem shaping of the news, Nagourney has triumphantly gone beyond cocooning--loosely defined as looking in a crowd of news stories for the most comforting friends--and into the realm of active spinning. A breakthrough, of sorts. ... Compare:WaPo's unimaginatively straightforward coverage of the same incident, quoting an unnamed strategist who merely "said the Kerry comments are an unnecessary distraction but would soon be forgotten." 9:50 P.M.

On immigration, it was only the House Republicans who stood athwart the Senate and a Bush-Democratic accord on what is effectively amnesty for illegal immigrants and insisted instead on tougher border enforcement. And there might be substantially fewer of these Republicans after Nov. 7. A Pelosi speakership could represent the final breakthrough for Bush's lax immigration policy, which was first forestalled by the 9/11 terror attacks and then by the opposition of conservatives in the House.

This election, therefore, is about amnesty as much as it is about Iraq or taxes. There are limits to how much a Democratic congressional majority could directly affect Iraq policy, and Bush would veto any tax increases. It is immigration where there could be real action. [E.A.]

Pelosi is Hillary's fatal fem: SEN. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she wants Democrats to win the House and make San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi the first woman speaker, but that might ruin Clinton's 2008 dreams.

The problem? Pelosi comes across as a shrill anti-military, anti-prayer, sharply partisan super-liberal who angrily insults Republican foes as "immoral" and refuses to work with them on anything. [snip]

"The one good thing that would come from a Speaker Pelosi is the first taste of a feminist in a nationally visible executive role," says GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway.

Nancy vs. Hillary: [snip] ... Isn't it possible that--if Pelosi assumes the speakership and flops as badly as some Dems fear--she'll perform an opposite function, namely souring the voters on the idea of a female executive.

Faster Party-Switching? Maybe the polls showing an unprecedently rapid Dem gain in party I.D. are wrong, as Michael Barone suggests. Or maybe party I.D. is just one more thing that's moving faster these days. 12:09 A.M.

Hot New House Polls: A new wave of 41 Majority Watch robo-polls ** shows Dems leading outside the margin of error in 222 seats, leading by less in 18 more--for a likely Democratic gain of 19-39 seats. ... P.S.: See also Mystery Pollster'sseemingly scientific "mashup" of the two most recent Majority Watch polls, revealing a continued, if small, Democratic gain for the month of October. ... P.P.S.: How does MP's calculation, which adds up voters in 30 contested House districts, differ from that Greenberg/Roper/NPR pollkfsniped at a couple of weeks ago? That's easy. The mashup effectively samples 30,000 voters; Greenberg/Roper only sampled 1,000. ...

I've been trying to figure out if a Democrat-led House would actually pass some version of the Bush-McCain semi-amnesty immigration bill. Everyone I talk to in Washington pooh-poohs the idea, arguing that Pelosi-led Democrats will never give Bush something he wants. I'd like to agree, but I'm skeptical. The only thing standing in the way of the Bush legislation was the Republican House, and if that's gone ... . Plus, there will be intense pressure from Latino groups for Democrats to take advantage of the rare welfare-reform-like opening in which a President is willing to defy his own party's Congressional caucus. Not to mention all those new citizens for Dems to register. ... V-DARE immigration-restrictionist Steve Sailer is skeptical too, though he notes the possibility of a split among the Dems, with a significant Lou-Dobbsy "preserve unskilled wages" faction finally emerging. But Sailer leaves out the possibility of a McCain presidency--which would presumably mean at least four more years of White House pressure for "comprehensive" reform. ... P.S.: Anyone who can help me think through this somewhat crucial question, please e-mail. ... 9:55 P.M.

If that anti-Harold Ford ad-- the one with the white bimbette saying "Harold, call me"--was "playing to racial fears" about interracial dating, was it intended to stir up whites who might fear miscegenation--or black women who might resent it if they thought Ford habitually went out with white women? ... [Both?-ed Sure--a twofer. But the MSM only brings up the "appeal to racist white voters." ] ... P.S.: Does anybody still buy the idea that the reaction against this ad is going to save Ford? [Corker, apparently--ed What does he know?] ... 8:17 P.M. link

Peggy Noonan makes a point so true one forgets to think it: Thanks to the genius of our Constitutional system, the wrong name will be printed on millions of ballots.

This is two weeks ago, from a Bush appointee: "I hope they lose the House." And one week ago, from a veteran of two GOP White Houses: "I hope they lose Congress." Republicans this year don't say "we" so much.

What is behind this? A lot of things, but here's a central one: They want to fire Congress because they can't fire President Bush. [E.A.]

For their part, many Democrats are acting, emotionally, as if they can 'stop the madness' by electing Speaker Pelosi. But they can't. That's one reason the Catharsis Theory of the election--that Republicans will benefit if voters vent their pent-up frustrations in 2006 rather than in 2008--may be wrong. Won't there will be plenty of ongoing frustration if even a solid Dem victory doesn't change much? ... P.S.--Just a Reminder: In a parliamentary, or even quasi-parliamentary, system, Noonan's restive Republicans could replace their leader now, when it's in the national interest to do so. ... Yes, yes, I know that if our system allowed a "no confidence" vote, Lincoln might not have survived the dark days of the Civil War. But for every Lincoln, it seems like there are three George W. Bushes or Richard Nixons or Jimmy Carters--presidents granted constitutional tenure that extends well past their terminal loss of effectiveness. .. 3:17 P.M.

105,000: That's the number of Latinos in four states that Democracia USA claims to have registered. It's also the only actual number I could find in Nicole Gaouette's familiar rah-rah piece about how anti-immigrant rhetoric and fence-talk "galvanizes Latino voters," which "could tip elections not only in Colorado, but in Arizona and Illinois as well." She could be right! But she's not convincing. ... 4:30 P.M.

Here's an NBC Nightly News segment ** containing a clip of President Bush signing the Secure Fence Act. Am I crazy, or does he seem not very happy doing it? He slaps down his pen in I-hope-that-keeps-you-happy fashion and gets out of there fast. ...

**--All Hands On Deck: As predicted, NBC buried the fence-bill story and Brian Williams gave it a pissy lead-in ("As NBC's George Lewis tells us tonight, though the fence has a lot of fans, others say it won't fix anything. ...") No fence proponents are shown. An activist, Juan Jose Gutierrez, says "our Latino community" will view the fence as a "frontal attack" for which proponents will "pay a high political price." Gov. Schwarzenegger is presented as if he were a surprise critic though nothing he says is especially critical (he calls it an "incomplete reform"). ...This may be an instance where the Halperin Jujitsu Effect actually applies--the segment is so annoyingly slanted it has the effect of angering conservative, anti-MSM fence supporters and mobilizing them far more efficiently than a balanced or pro-fence presentation would. Yet the people who put together the NBC report undoubtedly thought they were striking a midterm blow against the base-appeasing House GOP. ...

On the issue of immigration, majorities of Republicans in both the Senate and House have sided with their conservative base against not just left-wing civil-rights groups and elite opinion, but also a business lobby accustomed to plenty of cheap labor, Republican-party poobahs, and President Bush. They have withstood withering press criticism and pressure from their deep-pocketed donors.

True, they were also doing it to save their political asses, given the views of the people who actually vote for them. Still! It's worth noting that the supposedly all-powerful GOP fatcat business lobbyist contributors were in fact powerless to stop the fence. ... 12:46 P.M. link

Huh? a) The creation of a new protected class is pretty close to the paradigm of judicial activism; b) The final step taken by the New Jersey court may have seemed the "only logical option" only because of all the earlier activist steps the N.J. courts had taken to help bring the law to the point of giving some-but-not-full marriage rights to gays; c) As Amy Sullivan might argue, the breathtaking speed with which this sort of radical cultural change has gone from being unmentioned to being a litmus test for all rational people is one of the things that worries ordinary voters and turns them into cultural conservatives even though, were activists like Sullivan a little less self-righteous and condescending ("no logical option") these voters might be persuaded to try worthy experiments like gay unions and gay marriage. [But Sullivan's a doubting, Burkean proponent of conservative limited government, not an "activist"--ed. Right. Sorry. I forgot.]

Update--Quote Andrew, follow Amy: Reader A C-W emails:

But what about the Feiler Faster thesis, of which you are the chief proponent? Wouldn't that predict less backlash for the NJ ruling than the Massachusetts ruling? After all, people have had two years--eons in Feiler time--to process gay marriage. I'd say that a majority of the country believes (believes, not desires) that gay marriage will be legalized within their lifetimes, something which seemed impossible only 5 years ago.

Excellent point. The Feiler Faster Thesis, remember, holds that voters now process information comfortably at what used to seem like "breathtaking speed." Why doesn't this apply to the gay marriage movement? Here are some possible answers: a) It does. Gay marriage, as A C-W (along with Andrew Sullivan) notes, is being accepted relatively rapidly. b) Just because you process information about new social trends rapidly doesn't mean you approve of them. Specifically, it doesn't mean you approve of judge-made social transformations. You can "process" that development by disapproving of it. Undemocratic judicial imposition of gay unions arguably retards their acceptance; c) One of the things voters might be scared of is precisely that some sort of Faster principle will be applied to speed up social change, with disastrous unanticipated consequences (the same way, Amy Sullivan claims, voters are scared of letting scientific research proceed willy nilly with cloning, etc. "without ever having a conversation as a society about the moral issues involved." Given that concern, framing the gay marriage debate as "law" and "logic" against prejudice is analogous to framing the stem cell debate as "science" and "progress" against faith-based Luddism. The framing itself is what's most alarming. ...

Sullivan wrote "Here Comes the Groom," an article for the New Republic that defended gay marriage, in 1989. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that the state needed to show a "compelling state interest" in order to continue denying gay people the right to marry. Vermont passed a civil union law in 2000 ...

Four years from a provocative Andrew Sullivan TNR cover story to the law of Hawaii? Yes, that's alarmingly fast. Especially for constitutional law, which can't be repealed by simply electing new leaders. Especially for a change in family structure. (How many years did it take monogamy to displace polygamy? You mean how many millenia.) ...

P.P.S.:Slate's Dahlia Lithwick joins Andrew Sullivan in declaring (and not just once!) that "there is nothing 'activist' about [the N.J.] decision." It's just as cracked when she says it. 11:37 A.M. link

The Suspect Halperin Jujitsu Effect: If I read it correctly, Wednesday's ABC Note came close to arguing that when the MSM chooses to emphasize and anti-GOP story line--a classic example is the NYT's clucking front-page placement of the GOP Ford/Playboy ad controversy--it actually helps the Republicans, because such stories

produce an Old Media reaction (pro-stem cell research, pro-Fox, pro-Hollywood, pro-Ford) that Republicans can use to go to the base and say, "Don't let the Old Media steal this election!"

Under this perverse-yet-plausible theory, if the MSM really wanted to destroy the Republicans they would produce nothing but anodyne, pro-GOP stories from now until Election Day. Then the Republican base would stay home and the Republicans would lose. It's an idea that goes against all the fight-back instincts of the Democrats' Kossack netroots, but that doesn't automatically make it right. I'mskeptical. ... 11:15 A.M. link

Dems Dodge Big Gay Bullet? It seems to me the New Jersey Supreme Court has--perhaps non-accidentally--denied Republicans the powerful base-mobilizing weapon that a ruling mandating gay marriage would have given them. Sure, New Jersey proponents of gay marriage have been more or less invited to return to court if the legislature doesn't call the equal package of rights it grants gay couples "marriage." But by kicking the nomenclature question to the legislature, and giving them 180 days to resolve it, the New Jersey justices avoided having the state instantly become, as the AP's pre-decision build-up put it, "the nation's gay wedding chapel." Unlike Massachusetts, AP's Mulvihill notes, New Jersey doesn't have a "law barring out-of- state couples from wedding there if their marriages would not be recognized in their home states."In other words, had the New Jersey Court gone all the way and required gay marriage, the next two weeks might have been filled with stories of happy gay couples from across the nation buying plane tickets to Atlantic City for their expected weddings. Only a Liberal Media Conspiracy of unprecedented self-repressive power could have kept the hype from driving cultural conservatives to the polls. But now court's decision will slide from national consciousness almost immediately, no? Unless Ken Mehlman wants to spring for the plane tickets. ... 11:03 P.M. link

Faster Foley: Foley? That rings a bell. I remember there was something about a guy named Foley a while back. ... 10:05 P.M.

Momentum- changer? Looks like that big N.J. Supreme Court gay marriage decision will be handed down before the election-i.e. tomorrow--after all. ... See earlier blog posts here, here, and here for why this might make the Republicans' day. ...[Thanks to alert readers E.V. and R.H. and P.A. and P.R. and S.S. and A.D.S. Via Volokh Conspiracy.]10:15 P.M. link

Writes Itself: You had to go to page A18 of today's NYT and dig for a few paragraphs to find out that Speaker-Expect Pelosi--a woman who apparently needs a Cray XT3 to update her enemies list--will pass over Jane Harman and select either Alcee Hastings or Silvestre Reyes for chairmanship of the intelligence committee. Hastings, as the next-most-senior Democrat, has to be considered the frontrunner. He has at least one little problem, though.

DEMOCRATS SAY THEY MIGHT NAME FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE IMPEACHED* FOR BRIBERY TO HEAD INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

How hard is that ad for the GOPs to whip up? Make Pelosi deny it! Why does the RNC have those millions to spend anyway? Hastings is to Democrats as Foley is to Republicans. ... 2:54 P.M.

House Republicans especially saw the border-fence measure as excellent proof to voters that Republicans are serious about cracking down on illegal immigration. So they wanted some pomp and circumstance surrounding the bill-signing.

But Bush, who is holding out for "comprehensive immigration reform'' that acknowledges the millions of undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, plans to sign the fence bill in a relatively low-key ceremony in the Roosevelt Room on Thursday morning. [E.A.]

It seems to me that, by downplaying the fence, he's sacrificing a big 2006 GOP selling in the vague, slightly fearful pursuit of the Latino vote in the long term. It still makes no sense to me. Does Bush think the GOP is in such a strong position that he can win the midterms without every advantage he can bring to bear? Why not have a big, spotlighted ceremony at which Bush declares this the first, necessary and relatively non-punitive step toward larger reform? It's not as if Latinos aren't going to find out the bill was signed. ... Bush's action reinforces my earlier paranoid thought: He doesn't really care that much about winning the midterms. Or, at any rate, he cares less about them than about what he imagines as his "legacy"--a semi-amnesty that somehow turns Hispanics into permanent Republicans. ...11:59 P.M.

All-Hands-On-Deck MSM Drive for Victory! ABC's The Note has a thorough and knowing outline of "How the (liberal) Old Media plans to cover the last two weeks of the election" to try to ensure the GOPs do not regain any initiative. ...All ABC's Halperin & Co. left out, as far as I can see, is Point #13: Bury the news about the Secure Fence Act (if Bush doesn't bury it first!),Point #14: Do not mention the name "Alcee Hastings," and #15: 'Keep Foley Alive!' (though that may no longer be possible, even on NPR). ... 2:58 P.M.

Dead Again? Incoming e-mail: "word from Havana has it there are quite a lot of troops on street since yesterday and other cities...and rumors that Castro may have died...." 11:59 P.M. link

Blog-Proof Fence: Bush will no doubt sign the Secure Fence Act any day now. ... Update: Congress has sent the bill to Bush. (Here's the record on Thomas.) Presumably this means he'll sign it--maybe even in public! The signing statement could be a piece of work, though ('Nothing in this legislation shall be construed by the executive branch to mean I actually have to build the thing'). ... 7:52 P.M.

Is thiswhy Rove is smiling? Influence Peddler speculates that a pro-gay-marriage ruling in New Jersey, expected any day now, might "energize Republicans to come to the polls to register their displeasure by voting against [Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Robert] Menendez." But why do we think a New Jersey pro-gay-marriage ruling will only have an impact in New Jersey? It might signal to voters nationwide that a judge-made gay marriage trend threatens to sweep large chunks of the nation--it won't just be bottled up in Massachusetts anymore. If you oppose gay marriage that might bother you, and motivate you to vote, even if you live in Missouri. Or, say, Tennessee. Or even Virginia. ... [Story started on Hotline ]

Update: Never mind! The New Jersey court doesn't have to issue its ruling before its Chief Justice retires on 10/26, according to the Star Ledger. [Thanks to alert reader P.R.]